Okay, I know I’m quite late to the party on this one, but I am the kind of person that likes to play things to death before reviewing them. Hence, probably a few weeks later than it should be, here are my impressions of the Medal of Honor beta for anybody that hasn’tbeen lucky enough to get in or hasn’t pre-ordered…
The 1st thing any player will notice is the control set up. The default controls are a combination Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty:MW2. They are fluid and after a little bit of getting used too (throwing grenades instead of using your machete may get you killed in your 1st match) everything feels like it is where its supposed to be.
After playing for an hour or 2 I noticed a lot of similarities to the Battlefield series popping up. There are destructible buildings, mortar strikes, identical on screen icons (when shooting, the white cross hair pops up when you have hit somebody, lifted straight out of Bad Company 2) and even the tanks look like they have driven into the wrong game. With DICE being the company behind Battlefield AND the Medal of Honor multi-player, there were bound to be similarities, but they seem to have only brought with them the advantages and none of the bugs.
The building demolition looks and feels real, grenades now take out parts of brick buildings and can completely demolish wood huts which is a vast improvement on the Battlefield version. The weapons don’t jump around as much in Medal of Honor but still retain some recoil making it a little easier to survive a face to face with somebody if you are carrying a light machine gun. The game modes are fast paced and need a little bit of strategy if your team is to succeed.
The greatest thing about the Beta for me were the maps available to play. They. Are. Brilliant. They are a mix between a tight Call of Duty map (think Crash) and a Operation Flashpoint : Dragon Rising arena. They encourage all kinds of play. Snipers get to have little hideaways on higher ground, rushers have twisty building sections to test how quick their trigger finger is and campers have plenty of obstacles to wait under/behind until you walk by. Its got something for everybody and should easily have you hooked.
The one thing that disappointed me was the graphics. The levels looksuperb, and the building destruction is eye poppingly good, but its the actual characters you play. The 1st time I died, I watched as the camera panned to the 3rd person view and lifeless body tumbled to the sand and thought to myself…W…T…F. The level of detail on my character was awful. It looked as if Gabriel Logan (from the PS1 classic Syphon Filter, if you were struggling to remember) had wandered on to the PS3, got lost in Afghanistan then got shot. Obviously, this is only a beta so they are probably hard at work fixing that as I type.
Medal of Honors multi-player is that it should appeal to all. Its easy to pick up and have fun, but can be strategic and seems deep enough for the hard core players. I hope that come November, people look to this game as a rival to Call of Duty: Black Ops rather than an alternative. The impressions that I take away from the beta is that the game has taken the series in the right direction, putting it firmly within reach of that top spot that COD:MW1+2 has held on too for far too long. I just cant wait to get my hands on the actual game now and what seems like an engrossing single player. The countdown till November is on.
Omac_brother
